


Elegy For My Best Friend

by wheremyinhalerat (bearsquares)



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: 1958 Losers Club, Animal Death, Gen, Spoilers, novelverse, the dog dies, ugly cry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 03:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13731954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearsquares/pseuds/wheremyinhalerat
Summary: Mike Hanlon had a dog.Dogs are good friends.Sometimes people can be good friends, too.





	Elegy For My Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

> The novel is upsetting in a lot of places, but I cried hardest at Mr. Chips. (Just me slamming the book shut and holding my confused dog for an hour, no biggie.) I kind of needed to write this and I've been avoiding it for a while.
> 
> I focus a lot on adults and young adults, so yeah. I dunno. Mixing it up a little.

 

 

 _Henry Bowers killed my dog_.

 

Someone is dropping the curtain on the most important day of Mike Hanlon’s 11 year old life and he feels a terrible weight inside of him. Mike will soon grow used to this weight, he will feel it grow heavier with each passing day, but he will never forget who dropped it on him in the first place. He will never forget why.

Mike wants to be sick, but he likes the kids he's with.

Everyone says their goodbyes and their see-yous. The six of them, who stood so firmly together, scatter, but not without smiling and patting one-another (Mike included) before they depart. The shortest of them, Eddie Kaspbrak, walks with Mike the furthest, back the way he came earlier that day. They are all easy to talk to but Eddie has a particular calm about him, enough to make the miserable heaviness in his gut bearable. He asks Mike about where he lives and what he does for fun; Mike asks him about the Barrens and what their school is like. Conversation is easy, almost adult-like.

They come to the far corner of Neibolt Street and stop.

“Sorry about your dog.” Eddie says. His smile is kind but there is a weariness behind it. Mike had always felt something similar - enduring day after day objectively lonely and vigilant - but it unnerves him to see it in someone so small and young-looking. They’re the same age, he reminds himself. He wonders, almost crazily, if they have seen the bird, too.

“Thanks,” Mike says.

“He was a good boy, I bet.”

Mike nods. He could forget about his lost dog every now and then. When he found out what happened to Mr. Chips, Mike worried he'd never be happy again. But after the rock fight and the few hours he spent lighting off firecrackers with kids who felt like friends, he forgot for a while.

When he didn’t come home for a week, Mike told himself that Mr. Chips probably trotted off and found a family that spoiled him with steaks and tasty soup bones. After a month, Mike decided that he just got a few wild ideas and left. “No hard feelings, Mikey, but I’m going on the road!” His dog could have been out on an adventure like in the movies. Mike practiced his trombone at school, playing the soundtrack for silent movies in his head about Mr. Chips hopping trains and making friends with folks who were down on their luck. There was always a happy ending for him that way.

Mike wishes he never heard the truth come out of Henry’s foul, hateful mouth.

He wishes he could stop thinking about Henry throwing him somewhere and never burying him.

He wishes he wasn’t crying in front of someone he just met.

Neither of them speak while Mike sniffles, wiping his eyes and nose on the inside of his shirt collar. Eddie doesn’t say anything but, to Mike’s surprise, he places a small hand on his shoulder.

“Sorry I'm being a baby.”

Eddie has brown eyes like his, honest and strangely understanding for someone their age. “It’s ok. I would cry, too.” Mike sighs, shaking his head in the hopes of getting himself together. Most kids would make fun of him for crying, especially over a dog. “My ma won’t let me have pets, but I always wanted a dog.”

“Why not?” He asks, even though he feels like he already knows the answer.

“She says they’re dirty.” Eddie Kaspbrak laughs and looks off in some direction. Mike will walk that way to the Barrens for the rest of the summer. “Good thing I started being friends with Bill when I did. He’s smart like a dog is.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Well,” Eddie says. “I think dogs are smart because they’re good friends. They can tell when someone needs them. People are pretty stupid about that, I think. Mostly.”

Mike can’t tell if he feels better or worse talking about it. “I better get home.”

“You’ll come down, right?”

It was weird enough having a group of white kids help him - _prepared_ to help him - no questions asked. It’s even weirder to him that they want him around. Mike got along with the other kids at the Church School, but he feels something different with a bunch of kids who call themselves “losers”. The enduring loneliness he feels with the white kids at school follows him home every day. None of them are his friends. The kids he met in the gravel pit _are_ different. He's sure of it. He feels like it’s right for him to play with them and maybe be their friend even though the thought of that alone is terrifying. Mike Hanlon knows better than to get his hopes up.

Eddie has a reassuring smile on his face, almost as if he’s reading Mike’s thoughts. _That’s not possible, though, that’s silly._  “Yeah. I’ll come down.”

 

Walking home gives him time to think about it. Mike presses his lips together, still on the verge of tears, trying to stave off the thought that maybe Mr. Chips thought Henry needed him. Maybe his dog thought someone as mean and angry and horseshit crazy as Henry Bowers could be a little less so if someone loved him, even if it was just a mutt who wagged his tail too hard and liked to roll in deer shit. Instead, he killed him. And Henry was proud of it - proud enough to wait for years, until he was good and ready to finally beat Mike Hanlon to death, to take credit for what he did.

From that day on, Mike absolutely believes that Henry Bowers is irredeemable.

 

_For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses._

__\- Matthew 6:14-15._ _

  

 _I guess I’ll have to be on my best behavior_ _from here on out_ , Mike thinks.

 

**-**

 

The next morning is quiet. Will notices his son’s unusual demeanor but he doesn’t say anything. Mike’s eyes sting that morning after crying so much the day before. He feels tired but he finishes his end of the chores early that day, working with a grim efficiency. He’s sure he looks as tired as he feels. He sits at the kitchen table with his usual glass of milk, hard-boiled egg, and peanut butter sandwich. Everything is in its right place except for him.

“Mikey, what’s bothering you?” Jessica Hanlon places her hand in the middle of his back.

He realizes he hasn’t moved since sitting down. Mike apologizes to his mother and dutifully eats his lunch, unable to stop himself from remembering that Mr. Chips loved sharing his peanut butter sandwiches with him. His mom wouldn’t let the dog in the house at first, but Chips learned to behave himself indoors. After a while, he was even allowed to sit near the table during meals because Mike trained him not to beg. Mike only gave him things he knew they both liked. He liked egg whites and the middle of his sandwiches most of all, so he shared them with his best friend. _You like the same things as your best friend_ , he thought. On the occasion that Will and Mike returned home from a successful day of fishing, Mr. Chips would lay patiently next to Mike's chair at the dinner table for a piece of trout. His dog knew he would share so he stayed quiet and behaved. _You share everything with your best friend_ , he thought.

Mike naps a good chunk of the afternoon away. The window in his bedroom is open and a calming breeze drifts in, lifting his thin curtains. There was a heavy, stagnant feeling the day before. He is safe at home but Mike knows, painfully so, that the day Henry Bowers tried to kill him and the day he met the bird are neither the last nor the worst of his bad days.

He dreams about the kids he met in the gravel pit.

When his father gently shakes him awake, the feeling of nervous warmth still sticks with him. _I might have friends_ , comes as an echo from his dream. _I might die this summer_ , is close behind.

Mike speaks before his father, his voice barely above a croak. “Henry Bowers killed him.”

The majority of parents in Derry took what their children said with a grain of salt. Richie Tozier, Mike would find out, knew that all too well. His situation was different, though. Will and Jessica Hanlon knew their son was honest, of course, but Mike simply didn’t have the luxury of crying wolf if he felt like it.

Mike continues, telling his father about being chased and the kids he met. He doesn’t mention that he thinks they could be friends - he still won’t consider the idea himself even though some deep down part of him knows. For a moment, Will is speechless.

“You pay back what you owe, Mikey.”

 

**-**

 

“ _Daisies_?” Richie Tozier begins to laugh - a near constant sound ringing through the Barrens. “Now, what in the heckin’ damnation are two young’uns doin’ ass-deep in a patch a’ daisies?”

Eddie Kaspbrak looks over at Mike and shakes his head. They are sitting cross-legged in a small patch of grass and flowers near the riverbank. The flowers are actually buttercups but neither of them bother to correct Richie. Eddie would normally say something like, “daisies don’t grow next to frocking streams,” but he remains focused on tying them into knots while Mike idly twists his together into a miniature bouquet.

A week has passed since the rock fight. Mike has only ventured down to the Barrens a handful of times but each day when he walks back home he feels like years have passed. A bond is taking hold of him and he doesn’t understand it yet. Mike only knows that he feels safer when he’s with all of them. Normally, the quickness of their acceptance would feel suspicious, but they have all seen the thing - It - that came for him as a bird. _That_ cannot be faked.

Richie rolls his eyes and concedes good-naturedly, hopping back up the slope of the wooded hill. Eddie throws a quick glance over his shoulder after Richie before holding up whatever he has been working on. It looks like a messy Christmas wreath made entirely of long-stemmed buttercups. He appraises it shrewdly before his young face relaxes, appearing satisfied with his work.

“That’s cool.” Mike says offhandedly. “What’s it for?”

Eddie’s eyes meet his and something catches Mike off-guard - it’s the same smile he gave him when they were walking home that first day. He knows exactly what it’s for. Mike’s eyes are stinging and he wants to look away before he actually starts crying in front of him again. Eddie holds it out to him.

“It’s from all of us.”

His dog has been gone for years, and nobody would still care but him. Nobody _should_ care but him, but Eddie begins to cry with Mike. Fat tears roll down his thin cheeks but his smile doesn’t fade.

Mike blinks hard and rubs his eyes, taking the wreath of flowers and placing it carefully in his lap. He’s where he belongs. "Think he'd like it down here?"

"Do you like it down here?" Eddie asks, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

"...Ayuh."

Eddie busts up and they both giggle tearfully until he begins to wheeze. Mike slaps a hand over his mouth, hiccuping his last few laughs while Eddie takes a few clearing breaths, his hand hovering near his aspirator.

They gradually quiet down, until the low din of the river fills in the silence. 

"I think he'd like it, too."

He belongs with good friends.

 

  
  
**-END-**  


**Author's Note:**

> No clue if it was successful but I wanted to see if I could tap into the feel of the child parts of the novel - the rock fight always felt really unique to me because there are so many natural and unnatural elements mashed together and it's like a comprehensive boiling point - not a climax but one of a few major build up events. It's a highly emotional scene for Mike in particular and really speaks to the Losers Club being a bunch of kids who are TRYING to stay kids. They have their strange maturity, but they're literally defending their ability to be semi-normal children in spite of all of the shit going on so Mike just (obviously) fits in perfectly.
> 
> It's weird because it's damn near impossible not to bond with Mike as a character and I think he's really sympathetic in a way that is hard to convey in other formats? I love every iteration of Mike, but he is associated with very strong emotions in the novel. The scariest parts are the things that regular people will do when they're literally fueled by hate, and boy does he get...a lot of that. There is literally nothing positive about the murder of his dog - you don't even get the satisfaction of hating Henry Bowers because he's literally so fucked up that you can't even feel anything but uneasy and bummed out. No sympathy, just...god, your life sucks so badly and you're so angry that you have no chance of ever having anything better because of it.
> 
> The exchange being between Mike and Eddie just felt really natural to me when I thought about it. Eddie is a hardcore empath. His specific way of supporting the others is just incredibly sweet and I love how he's written. Also, like...they both kind of tag-team Henry as adults. Made sense to me, idk.


End file.
